cloudscape texas

challenge

this is a challenge/assignment for my next post, with complicated instructions:

a five-page play on three characters in one scene, on the event of a stranger and a couple never to see each other again.

then, the same scene in a five-page exposition, sans dialogue, of character and scene description.

the kicker, of course, is the conflict in defining a person in dialogue and defining them in description.

the theme of part one: character of a person is completely transient with the quality of one's verbal interaction

the theme of part two: even interaction does not mutate the soul of a person, even when the actions contradict what a person says.

bla. write. and then, revise revise revise with the paradox until both parts fit the same scene, and both parts work.

its so achingly human
to deliberately, carefully
plant wildflowers
of all shades and sizes
in the brightest and most pleasant time of the year.
and then
as they all come to bloom
mow them into compose
with industrial tracter
mowers.
maybe its not human
though, because it
really isnt natural. maybe its
us.

loathing of others

i wish i could feel
contemptously
about myself.
to hate me for
what i am and what i am not.
it would as easy to discount me.
count me as another one of those
or another one of them. but i cannot
believe that i will be ever thus
some easy prey to tack down with a pin
my silly fucking wings still flapping as i bleed
my life-blood for anothers' amusement.
i want to share my work as a gift, to share
what i do.
because i maybe think
it will help you figure
who the fuck i am
and help me figure
who the fuck i am.
i am liable to feel so
beligerent
and trapped
if i ever felt that i could not share this.
and it will not be the end of my gift
when i share what i have with you.
i can only hope that you cannot
walk away with part of me.
i have learned
that we men may easily pack away the fruit
of others' labor and
take it for ourselves;
callously, with a footnote, caveat, or sign.
we are left no right.
but maybe man puts
such an openness and weakness
to our greatest gifts
for we all expect
to give away our arrogance, our self-styling, and our pride
because of a greater good.
maybe we should learn that there is
no good
and
no great,
but only that we can choose to
draw a line in sand
or
allow a space
in a hall of fame.
but we cannot do both, and we
cannot appease friends.
not without the trading of sentiment
or the encounter of heart. where is
the world with heart, the reality of negotiation without choice?
i hate the options for choice, but i could only back them.
i hate the options for president, but i could only stand by.
would we benefit here from normalizing? i would give a large gift for the right to phrase well,
and yet we already have an understanding.
i know well what this meaning entails;
this lunch among brunches, towns among cities. would anyone
in our world
choose a place like this?
but would you ever even reserve the rights to refuse? tre salute per i ragazzi pazzi, per il futuro e la linea

before today

Not that any of it means a thing. Its worth nothing, like throwing small change into a fountain. No harm but minor wishing, no gain but small splashes and the first sounds of disappearance.

Non c'e una cosa significa. Ha degno di niente, come un po' di soldi nella fontana. Non danno ma desiderio minore, nessun guadagno ma le piccoli spruzze ed i primi suoni della scimparsa.

victoria harbor 

antebellum afternoons (and union nights)

green leaves, greener leaves
I can only sit here--
and wait for them to fall brown
and rotten from the bows stretching
towards me. I want them dead.
Empty of chlorophyll, finished
with vitality and nurishment.
Worthless but for the rake and fire.
Yet the night creeps from the dusk
and takes life out of it all.
From green to black,
from blue to gold to midnight
and moonshine.
Then those darling foliage
cast no light but shadow
deep swaying dark and
emptiness where we may
hide away from the truth and
what we may do out of the light.
I can find redemption under
the canopy of night, but it
only betrays
from the view of the world
in full light.

Like the First Time

Hi, just wanted to welcome you to my new blog. Oh god. I've become one of them.